


This Mortal Coil

by oriolevent



Series: Mortal Coil 'Verse [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Future Fic, Immortality, It sort of accords with canon, M/M, Pre-Slash, Supernatural Elements, To An Extent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 20:04:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6624361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oriolevent/pseuds/oriolevent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes things happen that you're not prepared for. It helps to have a contingency plan. It helps even more to have someone else with you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Mortal Coil

Growing up, you’re told what to expect as you get older.

 

Eventually you’ll have less energy, maybe your joints will hurt when you move. Days will seem a lot shorter than they once did and maybe you’ll become a bit more forgetful. A pretty standard batch of symptoms, really. 

 

Unfortunately, nobody really prepares you for never getting older.

 

When Peter came back to life after being put down by his nephew and his gang of tiny supernaturals, there were some changes he wasn’t really prepared for. Positive changes, even. On the one hand, he came back infinitely more emotionally calibrated than he had been after the fire. The psychopathic instincts were down at least a solid forty-five percent. 

 

On the other hand, he definitely stopped aging. 

 

He didn’t notice it for a few years. His fortieth birthday approached, and Derek — having reconciled, like the others, with this refreshed version of Peter — teased him about becoming an old man. Peter bore it gracefully, reminding his nephew he was only a handful of years younger, and that he had a few grey hairs of his own growing in on the back of his head. That kept him busy in a mirror for a few days, until Scott went and told him it wasn’t true.

 

But the birthday came and went, and so did a few more. Peter stood in front of the tall mirror in his apartment, naked, considering this. 

 

The ritual he had used to bring himself back to life had been rather vague. It was really a long shot for it to have worked at all. But it had produced results, and who was he to complain about that? So his muscles would never soften, his wrinkles would never go from charmingly roguish to an actual indication of seniority. Such a terrible tradeoff. He was devastated, really. 

 

But someone had to notice eventually, he figured, turning away from the mirror and finding some pants to wear. If nothing else, when Derek finally started looking older. Perhaps he ought to disappear before that happened — he had always been fond of Italy. 

 

A knock on his apartment door paused the thought. He wasn’t expecting anyone, and he lived on the top floor of the building. Deliberate visitors were the only kind he ever received. 

 

He opened the door after he heard the familiar heartbeat. Stiles was on the other side. “This is a surprise,” he said, leaning against the doorframe. He watched as the boy’s eyes landed on his bare chest, staring a moment too long before replying. 

 

“Uh, hi. I was in the neighbourhood, and needed to— um. Can I come in?” He ran a hand back through his hair awkwardly, rocking back on his feet. 

 

Peter looked him over first, and noticed how exhausted he appeared. He moved aside, allowing Stiles to enter. “I thought you stopped the all-nighters after you graduated college.”

 

“I did, mostly.” Stiles dropped the backpack he had brought onto the floor, and stood in the living room, looking around. 

 

He had been in the apartment before, but not for any particular length of time. And never alone, Peter recalled, circling around him to catch his eye. “Is there something I can help you with, Stiles?”

 

“Library,” he blustered out, “I need to look something up. Can I use your books?”

 

Peter raised an eyebrow. Surely Stiles recalled that he had always been less than enthusiastic about sharing his extremely rare and valuable collection of supernatural books with others. They simply didn’t have the respect required to handle them, and Peter was happy to field their questions for them. In exchange for bribes, of course. “It’s something you can’t simply ask me?”

 

Stiles huffed and pushed past him, though Peter allowed him to. “I don’t want to talk about it until I find what I’m looking for. Don’t kill me for touching these, okay?” He stood in front of the bookshelf and started picking out bestiaries and other volumes about creatures. 

 

“I would never kill you, Stiles,” Peter told him, slinking up to look at the titles he selected. Stiles gave him a sideways glance before turning back to focus. “I’ll simply supervise until you’re ready to talk.” Stiles rolled his eyes, but allowed it.

 

It took nearly an hour of sitting at Peter’s dining room table before he finished reading, groaned, and covered his face with his hands. “I knew it,” Stiles said, voice muffled. 

 

Peter sipped a cup of tea, waiting patiently for the boy to finish his small meltdown. He eventually went back to the open book on the table, reading the page again as if making sure it said what it did. “So,” he sighed, still not looking up at Peter. “You remember how I was a nogitsune for a while there?”

 

“It was highly memorable,” Peter said. He considered it a real tipping point in his opinion of Stiles. The boy hadn’t been the same even after the fox spirit had been dealt with. Still himself, but with a lovely dark streak running through him that saw him and Peter agreeing on plans more often than before. It had made working with Scott and Derek’s pack infinitely more tolerable. 

 

Stiles drummed his fingers on the page of the book. “Yeah, well. Do you remember Kira’s mom?”

 

“I only vaguely remember Kira.”

 

Stiles gave him a sour look. “I’m being serious. Her mom is a kitsune, like she is, and she looks like a regular mom, but man — she told us she’s over 900 years old.”

 

Peter looked at the books on the table. So Stiles was looking up kitsunes. He wondered why he didn't simply ask the ones that he knew about their species. “And this is troubling you,” he surmised. 

 

“Peter, look at me.” He did. Aside from looking tired, Stiles looked the same as he always did. Pale, unmarked skin, hair a bit too long on top. He dressed better these days, at least. Something to do with wanting to give the impression he was an actual adult, with a degree, and a job. “How old do you think I look?”

 

“Not much more than eighteen,” Peter decided, frowning. 

 

“Yeah, and I’m turning twenty-five next month,” he sighed. The books clearly had reached the end of their usefulness and he started carrying them back to the shelf. Peter followed. 

 

As Stiles had been possessed by a dark fox spirit for a while, it made sense that he had essentially become a kitsune, if only for a finite period of time. They were the last people to start questioning whether supernatural occurrences had lasting repercussions. “So you think that you’re…”

 

“Going to live to be a thousand?” Stiles laughed darkly, putting away a heavy bestiary, “Yeah, if the fact that I can’t get served alcohol anywhere since they think my ID is fake is any indication.”

 

He seemed genuinely upset, but Peter has having a hard time not running through a thousand different possibilities. He still attempted to be comforting. “I presume there are worse things than being trapped in the body of a twink for a hundred years or so,” he offered, watching Stiles wander over the couch. 

 

“Oh my god,” he collapsed down in a heap of limbs, “don’t say shit like that, you’re going to make the next couple centuries really awkward.”

 

Peter startled, realizing what he was saying. “You knew?”

 

“That you’ve shuffled off your mortal coil, and somehow continued shuffling? Yeah dude,” Stiles sighed, leaning his head back on the couch to stare at the ceiling. “Why do you think I came to you about this? Not exactly sure how I’m going to announce to everyone else I know that I’m going to watch them grow old and die like this.”

 

It was a fair point. One Peter had been struggling with himself. “I see. Well, I wouldn’t want things to be _awkward_ between us,” he sat down beside Stiles, putting a few pity inches between them. He sniffed, and distinctly caught arousal mixed in with the sadness of Stiles’ scent. 

 

“That’s not fair,” he said softly, glancing away. 

 

His heart was beating fast, but Peter didn’t like the damp scent of sadness around him, and elected to back off. “Besides,” he said, throwing an arm over the back of the couch, “your kitsune friends are in the same boat, aren’t they? Surely they’ve adapted to the idea of outliving the common folk.”

 

Stiles tilted his head a little. “I guess that’s true.”

 

“And there are a number of other species that enjoy a similarly long time upon this earth. Ghosts and ghouls, I suppose, but I prefer to avoid them — vampires, though, some of them can be remarkably pleasant.”

 

“Vampires are real?” Stiles looked more interested than sad, now. 

 

“Obviously. There are plenty of them in Europe.” Peter had heard of a few in North America as well, but the European vampires were always so much more cultured. “I was thinking of heading over there myself, once this,” he gestured down his own body, Stiles tracking the motion, “started to become too obvious.” 

 

He let Stiles think about it for a moment. It was a fascinating process, watching the boy think, always had been. His eyes went unfocused, as if he was looking into another space entirely. “Do you think,” he finally started. “Do you think maybe, I could come with you?”

 

Peter made a show of considering it. “Well, I suppose there is some aesthetic appeal to running off to Italy with a younger man.”

 

“But in a few years, though,” Stiles hurried to add. “I’m not ready to leave yet.”

 

“Of course,” Peter agreed, reaching out to tilt Stiles’ chin up gently, turning his face towards him. “Whenever you’re ready. You can plan it. You seem to like researching, and I’m far too busy for such things.”

 

After a moment, Stiles gave him a relieved smile. “Yeah. I suppose we have plenty of time.”

**Author's Note:**

> I had to pause my entire day to write this because this damned idea jumped in my face. I'm such a sucker for any sort of immortality/time travel/time bending trope. 
> 
> Comments are my favourite thing in the world, also come talk to me on [tumblr](http://oriolevent.tumblr.com/)!


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